Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1887-02-25

to move or to reach it. The fire went
out. The babe cried until midnight,
when it died. The woman was not dis
covered until Tuesday night, when some
relatives called at the house The wo-
man cannot recover. Officers and q
posse of citizens are pursuing the mur-
derer, who is thought to have escaped
into the mountains.
This conduct of a manly protector
may not seem SO atrocious, though, to
an enthusiastic student of the old
English common law, which has EN-
grated and incorporated in it the doc
trine that woman by marriage
merges" herself in her husband, and
loses her identity; or, as that legal
teacher of our friend, Blackstone, puts
it, husband and wife are one, and
that one the husband" The test of
civilization is the estimate of woman,
and let us congratulate ourselves that
the growth and diffusion of education
and the inexorable demands of justice,
are making these tyrannical tenets of
the common law, relating to the So
cial status of married women, repug-
nant to the people, and dead letters"
upon our statute books; and that the
universal justice and wisdom which in
England has modified the penal laws,
emancipated Catholics and Jews, en-
larged suffrage, and repealed the corn
laws, are now nullifying the edicts that
restrained woman's development and
denied to her fair play, so that with in
creasing moral light, larger liberty and
opportunity for higher education, she
is beginning to develope as an equal
human being.
And doubt not thro' the ages. one increasing
And the thoughts of men are widened with the
| process of the suns
Your correspondent wrongly asserts
that every womanly woman" ETC.,
will never ask to take upon herself
the duties of government" This is
the clinging vine chestnut" in new
form. 1t may be true that there are
few unideaed Flora McFlimpseys,
whose happy surroundings in life have
blinded them to the SORROWS and bur-
dens of those less fortunate, just as
there are loyal and true American citi-
zens, who, criminally careless of their
duties as such, have passed the polti-
cal machinery of this country into the
hands of hucksters and professional
politicians; but every thinking, earn
est woman sees too plainly the disad-
vantages with which her toiling sisters
are contending. If he is not willing
to take my ipse dictum for this, let him
ask the fifty thousand working women
of New York city. toiling at ii pittance
OF thirty cents per day, if they desire a
share in the governing power and an
opportunity to ameliorate their sad
conditions. Ask the drunkard's wife,
vainly endeavoring to gain susten-
ance for her children, if she wishes
chance to amend our laws. Ask the
sufferers from mans perfdy. Ask the
victims of the wife beater. Ask the
various women in the United States
now on trial for offenses punishable
by hanging, if they consider themselves
Justly amenable to laws in which they
have had no share in making. Ask
the women in the States of our Union
which are not blessed with our COM
munity property law, if they do not
feel the injustice done them. Ask
any woman who, like myself, has by
patient, individual effort, acquired
property in our Territory, and is thus
Il taxpayer and humble supporter of
government, if she relishes being
placed on an inferior political standing
with the six-months-and-a-day emf
grant from foreign shores. Believe
me, sir, it is not the divine decree that
women shall lead lives of subordina-
ton and obscurity: "Give her of the
fruits of her hands and let her own
works praise her in the gates"
We have wearied, too, of the covert
sneers which term the noble leaders of
the suffrage cause unwomanly," etc.
1t may be safely said that woman
full of energy and ability as a speaker
or writer in the reform field, will man
ifest the same qualities in the admins
tration of her household duties. No
one but the most ignorant would ever
apply the word unwomanly" to Lu-
cretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Phoebe w. Couzins, Lille Devereux
Blake, and others, women noted for
their womanly" charms and femi-
nine graces.
Let us but remind the expounder of
ier terra that the women who are now
seeking to obtain a political footing in
our Territory equal to that of half
blooded Indians and Kanakas are only
asking for the privileges and liberties
which they enjoyed even four thous-
and years ago. If space would permit,
we would Ike to refer your contribu-
tor, who thinks men alone are capable
of welding the strong arm of gov
ment," to those earlier days when wo-
man stood co-equal with man in the
| political, social and business world
AS late as the Greek Conquest, wise
women practiced as physicians, and
holy women as priestesses, when, as